Monday, November 26, 2018

Remember that science experiment where you use a magnifying glass to burn or ignite a piece of paper or dried leaf?

Microlearning is (or should be) like that.

Etching Lessons Through Glass and Sun

This magnifying glass experiment is perhaps one of the first scientific activities that we all remember having participated in as kids. Why do most people still recall that specific experiment even if they conducted it when they were still children?

Simple. As with other memories, the experiment engaged them. It was fun and it stuck in their brain.

And the best part is that most of us will find it easy to remember the lesson behind the experiment as well. After that experiment, we might never have viewed a magnifying glass the same way again. No longer is the magnifying glass a harmless little thing, but indeed a fire hazard and even “a weapon of ant destruction.”

What can this science experiment teach us? How can we apply it to microlearning?

Zoom In and Focus

Microlearning comes in different formats: videos, courses, infographics, games, simulations and many more. But underneath these various ways of presenting microlearning lessons is a core principle that should guide designers and trainers. All microlearning content should should zoom in and focus on a single problem or issue that the learner needs to solve or address.

“What does it take to build successful microlearning?,” asks this Association for Talent Development (ATD) article. “Mostly, it’s just careful consideration of the problem you’re trying to solve—the very specific, narrowly focused problem you’re trying to solve.”

Why just one problem? Well, we have to remember under what circumstances microlearning content is mostly consumed. While performing a task, an employee might run into an issue and shifts focus to overcoming this hindrance so they can continue performing their job.

This means they have very little time to solve the problem at hand. A speedy answer is necessary so they can get back to their work immediately. This actually matches with how modern workers learn. According to Josh Bersin, modern workers commit only 1% of their time at work per week to learning and development activities. (That’s only 24 minutes a week!) A separate report also found that “employees utilizing microlearning know 85% of the information they are required to know to perform on-the-job compared to 73% when they started.”

What does this data mean?

Learning That Drives Thinking and Action

The report shows that microlearning is an effective way to kick learners into thinking and acting. By smartly integrating content where learners can easily access them— i.e., embedded in their daily work—microlearning seamlessly incorporates L&D so that it actually drives action.

How do you integrate microlearning into your learners’ daily work life? Share your answers with me on the comments section below.

Monday, November 19, 2018

If you have an important lesson to share with your learners, how do you ensure that it sticks to their memories?

You might want to take a page out of the artist’s work.

Exaggeration and the Artist

When you look at the artworks of Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh and others, you might have failed to notice one important element that’s present in all of them: exaggeration. Art movements like cubism and impressionism draw the eye or illicit emotions thanks to some overemphasized element. Picasso portrayed the human form in terms of cubes, while Van Gogh amplified color and movement in his paintings.

Our tendency to exaggerate goes back to ancient times. Have you ever encountered the Venus (or Woman) of Willendorf? It’s a figurine depicting a nude woman with exaggerated sexual attributes. Believed to have been carved during the Old Stone Age period (around 30,000 B.C.), it is associated with fertility and childbearing and was perhaps even considered a mother goddess of some type. Visual artists “instinctively know” how to exaggerate, theorizes neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California at San Diego.

Adding One Level of Exaggeration to Your Microlearning Lessons

Exaggeration is a potent method of bringing learners’ attention to an important or critical message or lesson. Just take a look at the entertainment industry, mass media and social media, which use some form of exaggeration - the extreme, the absurd, the ridiculous, etc.—to hook the attention of their audiences.

According to Clark Quinn, an expert in learning technology strategy and Executive Director of independent consultancy firm Quinnovation, “We should be thinking about exaggeration in our learning design.” He suggests using exaggeration as a tool to mimic the stress of real life into our learning situations to “enhance engagement and effectiveness.”

“If we increase the meaningfulness of the learning context to match the performance context, even if the details are more dissimilar, I think it’s an effective tradeoff,” Quinn says.

In microlearning, exaggeration can hone learning ideas. Learners respond to exaggeration because it triggers our brain to remember and relate to past experiences.

Take a look at these examples. If you were shown these images at the start of a related training content, how would you feel? Would these visuals make you more interested or engaged in the training content? Why or why not?

[Workplace conflict]

[Example for bad customer treatment]

What are your thoughts about using exaggeration in microlearning? Can you think of any other benefits? How about any potential disadvantages? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments section below.

Monday, October 29, 2018

Do you want to learn how to use Instagram Stories? There’s a course for that.

How about handling difficult conversations? There’s a course for that, too!

Think about something you really want to learn, whether for personal, professional or business growth, and I bet you, there’s a course for that online somewhere.

What does this mean?

Democratization of Learning Content is the New Normal

Knowledge sharing started with crowdsourced sites like Wikipedia and the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Fast forward to today, open access and massive open online courses have become the norm. Even big companies like Microsoft and Facebook are implementing or creating platforms for learning that are accessible to everyone.

“Technology has a ‘democratizing’ effect, eliminating barriers and granting access so that new ideas can spread,” said Casey Coleman, former CIO of the U.S. General Services Administration.

A real-life example is Accenture’s learning boards. They kinda look like Pinterest and are centered around a learning theme such as a skill.

“Learning boards are probably the best example of democratization of learning, which has been at the heart of our learning delivery strategy,” says Rahul Varma, the visionary chief learning officer at Accenture. “In 18 months, we’ve gone from a handful of learning boards to a thousand learning boards, from a handful of users to 140,000 active users, without any corporate push. I haven’t in my entire life seen such scaling of a learning vehicle.”

Democratizing Learning Content in Your Organization

The number one reason to democratize learning content at any organization is this: It’s the “ultimate competitive advantage.” According to Kevin Oakes, CEO of Institute for Corporate Productivity, “Organizations are more competitive, agile and engaged when knowledge is constantly and freely shared.”

Creating a system and providing the tools that allow employees to freely share knowledge create valuable content in the process. Tapping subject matter experts (SMEs) within the organization is not only cost-effective, it’s also a great source of tacit knowledge. Imagine the value of an expert, who actually has contextual understanding of a problem, sharing solutions to real-life issues in the workplace.

In addition, knowledgeable employees will be duly recognized for their expertise. Imagine how much better that employee’s workday would be when they receive positive feedback from their peers and how much more likely they will stay longer with the organization because they feel valued and validated.

How is your organization democratizing learning content? If your organization hasn’t started on this yet, what do you suggest they do to start democratizing learning content?

Monday, October 22, 2018

“A baseball bat and a ball together cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much is the cost of the ball?”

What does your gut say the answer is? Now, do some analytical thinking and actually compute for the answer. What is it? Is your first answer (based on intuition) the same as your answer after computation? (Hint: The correct answer is that the ball costs 5 cents and the bat $1.05.

According to this article published in the Mind and Machines journal, intuition is “the speed and ease with which experts can recognize the key features of a situation” or “the rapid understanding shown by individuals, typically experts, when they face a problem.”

In Situation Expert, this is what we call Instant Thinking. This is the phase where you have initial thoughts, gut feels, guesses, or preliminary ideas based on your first impressions of a certain situation or instant recollection of memories of similar situations you’ve encountered in the past.

Intuition is one of the key defining traits of an expert. People with expertise in a certain area can easily and quickly come to a conclusion about something they’re familiar with. William Duggan, author of “Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement” calls this “expert intuition.”

Hubert Dreyfus and Herbert Simon agree that intuition has the following aspects:

In 1983, the Los Angeles’ Getty Museum got hold of a Greek statue known as a kouros. After due diligence - that is, after analysis and inspection - the scientists and lawyers it consulted declared the kouros and its accompanying documents authentic. Based on this finding, the museum paid millions to acquire it.

Before the kouros officially became the museum’s property, curator Evelyn Harrison was among the new set of experts enlisted to re-examine the piece. Harrison and other art historians and Greek sculpture specialists took one look and declared the kouros to be fake.

The authenticity of the kouros is still a mystery to this day. But the point of this story is this: Whereas the scientists and lawyers took their time in painstakingly analyzing and examining data to arrive at a conclusion, art historians spouted their findings in an instant. Their years of experience with art laid the groundwork for their snap judgment (Kahneman’s automatic System 1).

Additionally, although intuition and analytic thinking seem to be contradictory, they aren’t actually on opposite sides. The problem of bias requires a balance between intuition and deliberate thinking (Kahneman’s effortful System 2). Kahneman says,

“Systems 1 and 2 are inseparable. In fact, they need to work together. System 2’s explicit beliefs and deliberate choices are based on System 1’s impressions and feelings. When System 1 encounters an 'anomaly' or a 'surprise', System 2 takes charge, overriding automatic reactions by having the last say. Together, the two systems operate to minimize effort and maximize performance."

Monday, October 8, 2018

We’ve all heard the tale of the turtle and the hare. In the story, the speedy hare loses to the slow turtle.

I want you to imagine this as the traditional way of setting goals. SMART, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound, is perhaps the most popular way that most people have been taught to develop their goals, especially in the business or organizational setting.

If you’re using this method, how has that worked so far? Is it working at all?

SMART vs. FAST

Although SMART is popular, it has a major flaw. “SMART goals undervalue ambition, focus narrowly on individual performance, and ignore the importance of discussing goals throughout the year,” saysDonald Sull of the MIT Sloan School of Management and Charles Sull of Charles Thames Strategy Partners LLC.

If not SMART goals, then what’s the alternative?

Donald and Charles suggests turning SMART goals on its head and you have FAST goals:

F - frequently discussed

Goals are constantly being reviewed and evaluated.

A - ambitious

Goals are difficult but not impossible to achieve.

S - specific

Goals are translated into metrics and milestones, which helps provide clarity on the next steps necessary to achieve objectives and measure progress.

T - transparent

Everyone can see what your goals are, and you can see what your colleagues’ goals are.

Unlike SMART goals, the FAST method emphasizes on setting goals that are difficult but not impossible to achieve, embeds these goals into ongoing discussions for constant evaluation and feedback, and publicizes goals for transparency.

Feedback is Key

Waiting for a year to receive feedback on goals isn’t very smart for organizations operating in dynamic settings. Constantly evaluating and providing feedback on goals (as in path2x) help people correct (as necessary) and achieve their goals.

“SMART goals, therefore, are sometimes smart and sometimes not,” Martin Reeves, senior partner of The Boston Consulting Group (NY) and director of BGC Henderson Institute, and Jack Fuller, BGC consultant and BGC Henderson Institute ambassador, said in this MIT Sloan Management Review Research Highlight. “We should think about goals in a more contingent manner, adjusting the fuzziness and the ambition of goals depending on the kinds of environment our companies are operating within.”

Aside from shifting business environment, the MIT Sloan article also identifies 2 other triggers why people and organizations might need to revise their goals over time:

The company changes through capability development or acquisitions.

The company learns more about its goals.

Sometimes the Hare Wins

SMART goals are valuable in stable and predictable settings, but in a VUCA environment, where context is always changing, FAST goals are the better option.

So, in the real-world race to the finish, the turtle doesn’t always cross the finish line first. Sometimes, the hare wins.References

Monday, October 1, 2018

There’s an interesting bookthat talks about the future of work by Jacob Morgan titled The Future of Work: Attract New Talent, Build Better Leaders, and Create a Competitive Organization. In his book, he urges organizations to "rethink and challenge everything they know about work.”

Why is this so? Morgan mentions that the demographics of employees are changing and so, too, are their work styles, beliefs, and attitudes.

5 Generations of Learners

Organizations today are seeing five generations working side by side: the silent generation (2%), the baby boomers (25%), Gen Xers (33%), millennials (35%), and post-millennial generation (5%), according to the Pew Research Center. In the coming years, the number of older generation workers will continue to decrease, and the two youngest generations will comprise the majority of employees in organizations.

What does this all mean?

L&D That Matches the Evolution of Employees

Because millennials make up the majority of workers now and in the coming years, it’s important to account for their learning preferences in our L&D programs. Not only will this encourage them to stay, it will also entice them to join your organization. According to Gallup, millennials view professional development and career growth opportunities as the most important factor in a job.

Here are 5 ways to match the learning needs of new learners:

1. On-demand, microlearning and story-based learning

As new learners are accustomed to getting the information they want when they want it, on-demand and microlearning are unexpendable. In addition, it puts learners in control of their development, making learning more engaging and continuous. Similarly, story-based learning also works well, given their social media habits.

2. Sharing of insights and learning

New learners pine for a social aspect to their training and learning, as they’re used to in social networking sites. Use collaboration platforms, such as Slack, which allow for real-time and immediate sharing of insights and ideas.

3. Learning agility

In a world that’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA), organizations and employees need to be learning agile. That is, they need to learn how to learn, and apply their learnings and adapt quickly to new scenarios that come up.

4. Roles that take advantage of their strengths and interests

The concept of “job crafting” means allowing employees to do their best by providing job roles that play to their strengths and interests so they can be more innovative and productive. Here’s how it works:

5. Customized career pathsLearners want to be prepared for their next tasks, goals, and personal goals in life. For L&D, this means asking the question of how we can help them prepare for the next phase of their career or achieve personal goals, such as learning something that valuable to them. Read this blog post to learn 3 ways to create career development activities that work for new learners.

Are You Prepared to Meet the Needs of New Learners?

Share with me what your organization is doing to address your employees’ training and learning needs in the comments below.

Monday, September 24, 2018

What do you do when you have a problem? How do you respond to unexpected outcomes?

When faced with complex challenges or uncertain outcomes, many leaders believe that if they are smart enough, work hard enough, or turn to the best management tools, they will be able to find the right answer, predict and plan for the future, and break down tasks to produce controllable results.

But, the truth is no matter how good we are, we find ourselves having to deal with problems and situations that we've never faced before. To effectively solve these issues, we have to think differently - the way we think needs to change.

One of those habits or skills is how we think things through. John Hagelspeaks of this as the need to have advance cognitive skills.

3 Steps to Developing These Powerful Habits

The three habits discussed in the book Simple Habits for Complex Times is at the heart of the new software which I just launched called Situation Expert. Its key design supports what Daniel Kahneman calls as "slow and fast thinking": People tend to be biased in most of our quick decisions and actions, so it’s best we think them through.

Here’s how it works:

It asks workers and learners to share a situation, a problem, or an issue they want fixed and solved.

To implement these three steps, workers use tools such as Fishbone analysis, What if situations, Pareto laws and Workarounds. They offer solutions via a checklist or a reference video or link. The final step is to make sense of everything by identifying key patterns. The net effect of going through the process is better thinking for reliable results and learning from others.

These habits based on Berger and Johnston’s book Simple Habits for Complex Times is timely as we continue to explore how we can reliably depend on our workers to learn by training themselves.References

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

At which point do learners rely less on formal learning structure and start with self-driven learning while at work? When is the pivot?

There are multiple reasons why learners shift their dependence from formal training to self-driven learning. It could be to cope with the changes in their industry, to upskill, or to stay competitive. But, whatever the reason, today’s learning landscape has necessitated that learners take the lead in their learning and development and for L&D designers to take on more than a facilitator role.

This role includes matching the learners’ learning needs to the appropriate training materials and content. However, typical training content, i.e., those developed by SMEs, won’t cut it anymore.

The Problem with SME-Dependent Content

Most formal learning is limited because of their very nature - that is, being produced by SMEs or the designers themselves. These are the challenging issues I see with that.

1. Broken Production Process

Let’s take on a business point of view and think of formal learning content production this way: The supply of SMEs is always limited. The production of formal content is always inadequate and could not keep up with the demand for more knowledge being shared. Therefore, the production process is broken.

This is the most basic law of economics in action - the law of supply and demand. The cost of producing SME-dependent content is high but and the production is slow. As a result, learners’ demand are unmet.

2. Pseudo SMEs

Because of the limited production source from SMEs, content becomes isolated and remote.

Many SMES are theorists and academicians - people who have the knowledge but mostly not the experience. We call them pseudo SMEs.

Despite their lack of experience, however, pseudo SMEs are prone to arrogance and self-glorification. So, when SMEs are not available, it could be due to these reasons:

Distance from practical experience

No depth of knowledge

Arrogance

Lack of interest

And, because companies have no specific positions for SMEs, they tend to pull whoever is available to create training content—not a good or smart way to go about it.

Imagine this: If we ask everyone at work how they will solve a certain problem, we are more likely to get reliable answers faster than checking with SMEs.

This brings us to the fundamental value of encouraging a culture of open sharing of experiences. This is how most of us learn on the job today - we ask people.

With technologies, we can make the process of sharing experience even faster.The rapid growth of technologies opens up a lot of opportunities for learners to learn faster than ever before. But this does not include your LMS. Let’s refrain from using your LMS because this is where SME-dependent courses live. When SMEs are around, people will most likely be looking at the them for answers rather than use their own experiences or share their experiences to help others learn.We need to redefine SMEs as "those who can do something and know something," with expertise no matter how big or small, but can contribute now and today.References